(ECNS) -- As China advances its strategy to make computing power flow as seamlessly as electricity and water, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is emerging as a key player in the country's digital infrastructure landscape.
As one of China's pilot regions for the coordinated development of computing infrastructure and power resources, Xinjiang has already established five renewable energy bases, each with an installed capacity exceeding 10 million kilowatts. Computing power is rapidly becoming one of the region's defining strengths.
Amid intensifying competition among China's computing-power hubs, what gives Xinjiang that edge?
Zhu Keli, founding president of the China Institute of New Economy, told China News Network that Xinjiang enjoys a unique combination of resources, geographic and strategic advantages that provide a solid foundation for becoming a national-level green computing hub.
One of its greatest advantages is electricity.
Industrial electricity prices in Zhejiang Province range from roughly 0.6 to 0.7 yuan ($0.089 - $0.1) per kilowatt-hour, while comparable rates in Xinjiang are only around 0.3 to 0.4 yuan. Industry estimates show that one petaflop (P) of computing power consumes approximately 2,400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day. For a large-scale computing center with tens of thousands of petaflops of capacity, the resulting savings can reach hundreds of millions of yuan annually.
More importantly, much of Xinjiang's electricity comes from renewable sources.
Xinjiang ranks among China's leading regions in solar and wind energy resources, with the cost of green electricity estimated at only about one-third of that in many eastern provinces.
"Xinjiang's abundant renewable energy reserves naturally align with the requirements of green and low-carbon development," Zhu said, adding that it provides stable, low-cost power support for the computing industry and enables deep integration between computing operations and clean-energy consumption.
Beyond affordable electricity, Xinjiang also offers abundant land resources for the construction of large and ultra-large-scale data centers and intelligent computing clusters, avoiding the space constraints faced by many eastern regions.
By leveraging its clean energy strength and expanding computing infrastructure, Xinjiang is fostering a new industrial chain that links power generation, computing power and data resources.
National strategic planning is further accelerating the region's rise.
From the perspective of infrastructure security and national resource allocation, Zhu noted that Xinjiang's inland location provides favorable conditions for data storage, disaster recovery and remote backup services, making it suitable for hosting important data assets.
Investment momentum is gathering pace. According to Xinhua News Agency, during the first quarter of this year, 18 centrally administered state-owned enterprises signed 92 cooperation agreements with Xinjiang across sectors including computing power, with planned industrial investments totaling about 170 billion yuan (about $23.7 billion).
Under the country's "East Data, West Computing" initiative, Xinjiang is becoming a major destination for China's computing demand transformed from east China.
At the same time, it serves as an important gateway connecting China digitally with Central Asia, West Asia, and Europe.
As the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt, Xinjiang is strengthening cross-border digital connectivity. In Changji City, the Xinjiang International Integrated Computing Center is already operating, helping link digital networks across Central Asian countries.
At the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, strong winds and abundant sunshine are being harnessed to generate clean electricity. Increasingly, that energy is powering not only servers and data centers, but also Xinjiang's ambitions to become one of China's leading green computing hubs in the AI era.
(By Gong Weiwei)
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